Ding Ling

Early Life and the Death of Hu Yepin

Born Jiang Bingzhi in Linli, Hunan, in 1904, Ding Ling studied Chinese literature at Shanghai University and was drawn to literature under the influence of the May Fourth New Culture Movement. In 1925 she married the writer Hu Yepin. On 17 January 1931, Hu was arrested by Nationalist authorities in Shanghai, and on 7 February he was secretly executed at Longhua along with twenty-three others, including Rou Shi, Yin Fu, Feng Keng, and Li Weisen — the incident known as the deaths of the 'Five Martyrs of the League of Left-Wing Writers.' After his death, Ding Ling sent their infant son, not yet a hundred days old, back to Hunan to be raised by her mother, and returned to Shanghai to throw herself into the left-wing literary movement.

Fame, Abduction, and the Journey to Yan'an

In 1928 Ding Ling became famous for her novella Miss Sophie's Diary, which shook the literary world with its psychological subtlety and exploration of female self-consciousness. She joined the League of Left-Wing Writers in the early 1930s and the Chinese Communist Party in 1932. In May 1933 she was secretly abducted by Nationalist secret agents in Shanghai and held under house arrest in Nanjing for three years, during which rumours circulated that she had been killed or had defected; Lu Xun, Soong Ching-ling, and others campaigned for her release. In September 1936, Ding Ling escaped Nanjing for northern Shaanxi, becoming the first prominent writer to reach the Communist base area, where she was welcomed by Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other leaders. In 1940, the CCP Central Organization Department concluded a review of her captivity, finding that she 'remained a Party member loyal to the Party and the revolution.'

The Yan'an Years and "Thoughts on March Eighth"

In Yan'an, Ding Ling led the Northwest Front Service Corps to the front lines and held posts including Director of the Literature and Art Office of the Propaganda Department and editor of the literary supplement of Liberation Daily. On 9 March 1942, amid the Yan'an Rectification Movement's call for Party members to 'offer opinions,' she published 'Thoughts on the Third of March Festival' in Liberation Daily, criticising the unequal treatment of women within the base area. The essay drew sharp criticism from some within the Party; Mao Zedong defended her at a cadre meeting, saying 'Thoughts on the Third of March Festival criticises our Party and our cadres, but it also offers constructive suggestions,' and distinguished her from Wang Shiwei, who was under criticism at the same time: 'Ding Ling is a comrade; Wang Shiwei is a Trotskyist.'

The "Ding-Chen Anti-Party Clique" and Its Expansion during the Anti-Rightist Campaign

After 1949, Ding Ling held posts including Director of the Literature and Art Office of the CCP Central Propaganda Department, Party Secretary and Vice Chairman of the Chinese Writers Association, and chief editor of Literary Gazette and People's Literature, making her one of the most senior women in the literary establishment. Her 1948 novel The Sun Shines over the Sanggan River, a realist depiction of land reform in North China, won second prize in the Soviet Union's Stalin Prize for Literature in 1951. From August to September 1955, an enlarged meeting of the Chinese Writers Association's party group branded Ding Ling and fellow official Chen Qixia an 'anti-party clique' — the 'Ding-Chen Anti-Party Clique' case. During the 1957 Anti-Rightist Campaign, the case was expanded into the 'Ding Ling, Feng Xuefeng, Chen Qixia Rightist Anti-Party Clique'; Ding Ling was labelled a 'major rightist' and stripped of all positions and Party membership.

The Great Northern Wilderness and Qincheng Prison

In 1958 Ding Ling was sent to a state farm in Heilongjiang's Great Northern Wilderness for labour reform, remaining there for twelve years (1958–1970). In April 1970 she and her husband Chen Ming were taken to Beijing's Qincheng Prison, where they were held for five years (1970–1975). Released in May 1975, she was resettled in rural Changzhi, Shanxi, reuniting with Chen Ming; she did not return to Beijing until early 1979, having endured more than two decades of exile and imprisonment.

Rehabilitation and Later Years

In July 1978, a CCP Central Committee document removed Ding Ling's 'rightist' label; she returned to Beijing in January 1979 and had her Party membership restored that May. Questions surrounding her 1930s captivity in Nanjing, however, remained unresolved until 1 August 1984, when the CCP Central Organization Department issued Document No. 9, fully rehabilitating her and overturning the earlier unsubstantiated allegations concerning her Nanjing detention. In her later years she continued to write prolifically, producing memoir-style works including Wangliang's World and Wind and Snow in the Human World, and in 1985 founded and edited the literary magazine China, mentoring young writers. Ding Ling died in Beijing on 4 March 1986, at the age of 82.